It must have been the worst day of his life, someone mutters in a quiet room of the hotel here in New Jersey, where Gerrard and his Liverpool team-mates are staying.

“There’s your answer,” he says, with almost a hint of a smile.

He admits though that the agony stretched from April to June, during which he saw the title slip from ­Liverpool’s grasp, England came home almost shame-faced from the World Cup and he gave up not only the captaincy of his country, but his career with the national side.

Yet he does not want to hide from that disastrous period. His philosophy is simple.

(Image: Getty)

He will face those demons, talk about them. He wants to do that, so he can focus on fresh horizons.

“I’ve probably been through the worst three months of my life,” said Gerrard.

“There’s nothing else to say is there? But if you ask how it’s affected me – it hasn’t. I have football to play in the future so you have to look forward, not back.

“Every time I speak to the media it’s going to be mentioned and that’s the only time I think about it, really. I appreciate how big it is when you go out of a World Cup, when you fall short, after going so close in the Premier League title race.

“I understand it’s going to be on the agenda every time I speak, and of course it is tough to take at the time but you have to move on in football.

“We have to try to win the league, progress in the Champions League, there are massive games to look forward to. When you’re captain of the team and the group, you can’t afford to be down and feel sorry for yourself or mope around.

"Everyone in this group of players looks to me to see what sort of mood I’m in, to see how I’m behaving round the place, so I have to shake it off pretty quick.”

He has watched on TV a few times replays of the moment his studs slip on the Anfield turf and Demba Ba races away to score.

He shrugs when asked about the ­injustice of being singled out for blame.

He said: “That’s why it was cruel. I haven’t made a mistake, I haven’t lost my man at a set-piece. I haven’t missed a penalty. I haven’t made a bad pass.

“Every single person on the planet slips at some point in their life, whether it’s on the stairs, on the floor or whatever. For me, it happened on the pitch at a really bad moment.

“But over the course of 38 games, a lot happens for you and against you and that determines if you win the league or not.

"But that moment happened at a really crucial time and I have to face that. And I will.”

And when he faces it, he wants to ensure it is not the defining moment of his career, because there are still trophies to be won and ­memories to be forged.

(Image: Getty)

“I haven’t counted but I’ve seen it a few times,” he said of the slip, which allowed Ba to steal in and put Chelsea 1-0 up. “I don’t have to watch something like that to go through the pain again and again and again. It happened.

"I’ve been through the pain in the dressing room after and in the weeks and months after it.

“When something like that happens, you have to try to face it up. I’m man enough to take it on the chin and accept it. It’s happened and I can’t change it.

“The level I play at for Liverpool and England means it can be a cruel game.

"It’s not always going to be celebrations, smiles, highs and winning things.

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“When you’re fighting for things at this level there are always going to be downs and heartbreaks and ­disappointments, and the last three months have been a massive ­disappointment.

“I have to use that as a positive to drive me on. At 34, there is no possible way I am going to let the last three months be the things I remember. It’s important it finishes on a high.

“Unfortunately, I have had that tough time at club level at the end of the season and then I’ve gone into a World Cup hoping that it was going to go really well to help me get over it.

"But it backfired. I’ve had two massive lows in a short space of time, so it’s a good test for me this season. Can I hit form after that? I believe I can.”

Looking at the steel in his eyes as he utters that sentence, no one should doubt the Liverpool captain has the mental strength and the ruthless resilience to ensure he does.